Search results

Well, the businesses use marketing to create needs. And it's been well researched in marketing that even when we think we haven't been influenced by marketing, we've been influenced by marketing. Chilling stuff. Yeah, I'm pretty much in opposition to marketing existing in the world. Creates...

When I worked in a hospital, my colleague got shit spat on him. Yup, the patient, not content with slathering themselves in shit all over, had hidden shit in their mouth just in case we'd restrain her arms. Thing is, here in Finland the patients that can afford private health care are well-off...

Right, but Ibelievea more important incentive than money would be choosing to live like good doctor, or that your colleagues think you a good doctor. edit: found some empirical studies. 'job satisfaction was more frequently associated with achievement, recognition, characteristics of the...

Just a really quick reply. None of the nurses and doctors I personally know need pecuniary incentives to work hard. Sure, they need money like everybody else (until the coming of the glorious barter economy :P ) but it's a severe mischaracterisation of the typical nurse or doctor to say that...

It's about ethics in health care. I was not talking about hitman. No, wait, I was talking about hitman. Never said nurses are physicians nor that all physicians and nurses working in private sector were greedy. Just that greedy nurses would likely work in private sector, because the salaries...

I went over some papers in healthcare and economics and it looks like it's a much more complex subject than I thought. I don't think the fundamental tension between caring for patients vs. marketing to stimulate demand goes away, but I admit I completely overlooked the inefficiencies that result...

Naah. Some of them are probably greedy. I do think it's more admirable (andmorallymore worthy) to work underpaid and overworked in the public sector and more admirable still to join the Red Cross and work pro bono in Africa. Or in the USA helping the disadvantaged. If you're a greedy individual...

So you did not read my posts? Where I think out loud on the merits of going to med school? The point was to show the conflict of interest between a private health care provider and the patient, not to discuss how to treat something, but quick googling gave...

English, motherfucker. Do you read it? Do you have any idea how diagnosing and treatment works? If I sprain my wrist while playing golf, I do not, medically speaking, need a MRI or CT scan. Yet you can bet that any private provider would be extremely happy to slap on X-Rays and ultrasound, too...

So there's a physician deficit in the US as well? Guess that's what is to be expected what with the advances in diagnosing and treatments, eh? Sorry to hear about your wife's difficulties in job seeking. I'm remembering that money spent in therapy and counseling is money saved several times over...

1) the free market only exists as an idea. 2) even if it did, that's nonsense. Look at the discussion of dessert. Just as a really, really, short overview of Rawls' objection to dessert: 1) we see that people who prosper generally share characteristics, right? Able to put off satisfaction...

The vast majority of nurses (83%) DO work in the public sector. Maybe I should've called the few who work private sector 'normal people' and the vast majority who do not 'morally exceptional, altruistic and admirable' because they damn straight are. Nurses rock. (Brad image here) I don't know...

I'll reply to this in a little more depth. The flippant answer is, of course, routinely acting out of greed, same as any other person. More specifically to nursing and Finland, though: absolute majority of all (health) care given in Finland is paid for by the taxpayer. All nurses have been...

The reason I'm currently somewhat meh about going for a doctorate in philosophy of law is the begging for grants. I really, reallyreallyreally, like knowing how much and when I'll have money coming in. (yep, a flawless victory for working in public sector health care, again.) And it's not...

Edit: thanks mates, different perspectives indeed. Just what I hoped for! Vanderhoof: so you're saying you shoulda gone for melee DPS instead of ranged psi-CC? I'm thinking forensic psychiatry. (Here, it means your patients are prisoners and those whose mental state precludes culpability...

Another back to school decision point here. Comments, questions, criticism please? tl;dr To summarise: it looks to me most of the advantages of staying in Finland are different forms of convenience. I wouldn't be stretching myself as much, meaning I'd have more energy to do stuff. In the...

It would be worrying itf it made sense to you. I had already started my Valborgh velebtrations and missed a do not have. Noithing major, just like writing G == gamma times Mass1 times Mass2 times Distance and not Mass1 Mass2 over distance suqared.

It was late a "few" ago mate! Am focken' pisst agin. I think "thought process" is giving too much credit wherenoneis due. In fact, a punishment rather than credit is due here. ...Therearewarning signs on bleach bottles in the USA, right? The argument -- that really doesn't need spelling...

The argument that the school of thought known as natural law makes, that it is deeply unethical for the State to compel us to act unethically, or for the State to punish us for that which is not ethically wrong, is a good one. However, the positivist position already accounts for this: Hart...

Why are some of you talking about legal standards and enforcement of law in a discussion of ethics? We know that, to quote Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes "But if we take the view of our friend the bad man we shall find that he does not care two straws for the axioms or deductions, but that he...

There's too much confusion in the air People are mixing up ethics, ethics guidelines for profession, and morals. Morals is just the social consensus on what is appropriate behaviour. It's definitionally relative, because societies reach a consensus (or don't) and this process has nothing to...

Well, Pun-Puncoulddo that, but he could do anything that D&D allows, so that boulder throwing isn't anything special for him. I mean, he could fart so hard he'd destroy a planet, or the universe, really. And he could have already done it and maintain a simulation of reality. That boulder...

Yes, I've got friends working in that specific unit, so I know how fucked up it is. It's very much like giving palliative treatments to terminal patients. Only with the added shit sandwich that is social sector accounting: the city social services get more state level funding if they are able to...

But, hey, if the chemistry is there in the meatspace, was does it matter if someone helped them meet you? I mean, we've all seen it happen: someone shouldn't be interesting on paper, but once you meet them, sheBANG! Actually, it's happened that way every time for me Also, what's the intl...

Also, almost none of our relatives believe if we tell them the truth. But that's just par for the course. Mom's very intelligent, see. A lot of people have told me she's the smartest person they've ever met, and I agree, to a degree. Her preoccupation with status has stunted her intellectual...

Also, and this crosses over to the parenting, online dating and the power of divorce threads: some people say that your inclination for mental illnesses is to a great degree biological and that we ought to stop blaming our parents for our difficulties. This advice is counterproductive in the...

Checking in again. I read something somewhere in intertubes that gave me a jolt. It was, I'm fairly sure, Mark Manson's essay on something or other, or a source he used. (Aside: Manson isn't just a dating coach, though relationship stuff does feature heavily on his site. But there's also...

Here's an on topic bit: the district court gave our divorce judgement on January 17th. Been trying to cope with this since June, which is when we reached a point where neither of us felt like things could get better again. The fun bit is, that I was depressed due to having a predisposition...

Misreadwaistand lolled.

Completely disagree re: the loot, completely agree re: lvl vs. lvl. Meaningless, generic shit that lasts a few hours (minutes) is central to Diablo (and arguably roguelikes) but you can't be saying that loot in Diablo was BETTER than in Baldur's Gate series or Planescape:Torment? Ofc, it...

Hey, nobody's perfect, huh? I can't imagine the question was too difficult to parse, was it? Have you guys tried a sandbox game? I don't know how to write that more clearly. Perhaps... Have you, the plural you, the general you, not anyone in particular, but anyone reading and possibly...

You apparently are

I do enjoy some of the wow clones for what they are... A McMeal extruded product that you romp through and discard. Doesn't earn the company subscription fees, but, hey, they aren't marketing experts, they are MMO designers! No, wait...

edited: was hammering on a hot button issue needlessly What doesn't get said often enough is that the writing in games sucks. It stinks. It's absolute bollocks. It's not necessarily that the writers are bad, though I'm sure there are mediocre writers working in game companies. It's that...

What can I say? I don't see what's wrong with the model of weak kobolds / baby black puddings being worth 3k xp, nasty ninjas / Thomas Covenant / slutty nun being worth 15k xp and Blarglefloogah being worth GIGA xp, no level scaling, you get to choose whether you want to newbie group or lowbie...

I guess the Dumar was right, and there is no hope of a game for us grognards. I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm proud to be a grognard. But... fuck me, if the people digging the current crop of MMORPGs don't remind me of the guys who, back in the 80s & the 90s, played sports games and maybe...

What amazes me is that you haven't read everybody's posts as declarations of preference. I mean, take Dumar and Itzena. The dudes have fairly identifiable preferences, but that's all we have, as humans. It's not like there is a single truth about good game design that the devs need to discover...

Wish I could find Lithose's reply to this exact assertion in the Pantheon thread. Out of mana, tho, so you get my cliff notes. You're wrong. Some of us do not want EverQuestagain. I, for one, did not play EverQuest. Didn't get my CC early enough, and by end-2000, everybody was waiting for...

Since the game begins at max level anyway, why not eliminate the item that starts a quest, too? I mean... The point of the structured leveling experience is to funnel exp into the character at certain rate. Might as well make the kill x bears quests automatic, like, say, kill X zombies...

I don't think Wildstar is that sort of game.To me, it's a more immediate, 24/7 flashbangwhoopee -kind of game. If the design were more ambitious, they'd have NPCs phoning you about that bear you just killed 'kill a few more and call for a pickup drone' so that you didn't have to first pick up...